CAPE TOWN - Mzansi Restaurant, a vibrant buffet-style eatery owned by 22-year-old Mbasa Siyaka, who is passionate about job creation, has bagged the Cape Town Tourism Board Development Fund (BDF) award.
The annual awards established in 2014 aids small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) with cash awards, mentoring and other business-boosting actions to develop their tourism businesses.
With the devastation of cancelled bookings owing to the Omicron variant and the red-listing of South Africa by other countries, Mzansi Restaurant said the award came at the right time.
The eatery, which offers a mix of Western and traditional African meals, lost all its international bookings for the festive season, becoming solely dependent on locals for support.
“With ease of lockdown restrictions, Mzansi Restaurant was hoping to be at the forefront of the recovery of Cape Town’s tourist industry. Before Covid-19, we operated about six days a week, were rated number one on TripAdvisor and employed around 16 people” said Siyaka.
The restaurant was opened at 45 Harlem Ave in 2008 and was the brainchild of the late grandmother of the Siyaka family.
She convinced her daughter Nomonde and her husband, Vukile, who were hosting a jazz club at the time, to focus on the bustling market of international clients coming in and out of Langa.
Siyaka, who started as a car marshal, took over the reins in 2018 after his mother became chronically ill.
“The long-term goal is to employ another 16 employees from the area. Through mentorship also by the CTICC manager, I want to learn more and inspire other young people. Having been selected as one of the successful candidates for the Cape Town Tourism BDF programme serves as validation of the vision that was birthed by my grandmother.
“We wish to express our sincerest thanks to the Cape Town Tourism Board for not only providing Mzansi Restaurant with the much-needed support to propel our growth, but also for the realisation that SMMEs do not just need cash to grow. We also need an integrated approach that captures a wide but interdependent array of support,” he said.
Cape Town Tourism chief executive officer Enver Duminy said: “As Cape Town Tourism, we have been working together with other sectors in trying our best to contain the negative impact of lockdown on the local economy and saving jobs that we have been steadily growing across Cape Town.”
The board’s chairperson, Brett Hendricks, said that providing support for local enterprises during this critical time was crucial.
“Our BDF initiative is something we hope will inspire other organisations to invest in supporting small businesses. SMMEs are where South Africa’s growth comes from, and we cannot rely solely on the government to fund and support them.”
Cape Times